LETTERS

Ready ramp In the article “Moving Meat” (September-October 2017), you mention bringing ramps to help load large animals into a truck. What I do is use the ramp every pickup truck comes with: the tailgate. I simply remove the tailgate and lay one end on the rear bumper and the other on the ground. Bingo, a ramp. I have loaded large deer and mediumsized elk by myself this way. Also, I would never use the gutless field dressing method you promote because it seems to waste the rib meat, heart, and liver.

Steve Bosch Amboy, WA

Editor replies: The tailgate is a great suggestion. Regarding gutless field dressing and waste, the rib meat is easily accessed after you peel the skin away from the body. So are the heart and liver. Saw up through the breastbone and open the chest cavity as you would with regular field dressing. It takes some practice, but it’s also not hard to retrieve the tenderloins. Cut around the diaphragm, reach in along the inner spine, and pull them out.

Revelatory road trip After reading the essay, “Doing Just Fine” (November-December 2017), I was reminded of a cold night in the Gallatin Valley some years back. The mercury had dropped to 40 below. Maybe not the brightest of ideas, but on that cloudless, bitterly cold morning my wife and I decided to take a road trip. I wired a piece of cardboard in the grill of our SUV and threw a couple of sleeping bags in the back seat as a precaution.

We drove south into the Gallatin Canyon. At the Big Sky intersection, we spotted a band of bighorn sheep feeding on the hillside. We started talking about how brutal the previous night must have been for those animals. But then we realized that those sheep can survive almost anything that nature has to offer, as your essay explains. Their lives weren’t hanging by a thread, as ours would have been after spending a night out in those conditions. Thanks for the interesting essay and the great photography that went with it.

Robert Tinker Englewood, FL

Belated thanks Regarding your article on the licensing process in the “The Big Day” (May-June 2017): I can’t

believe people who don’t receive a license in your lotteries actually call and complain. For more than 20 years, I applied unsuccessfully for a Montana moose license and never once considered phoning to gripe that I didn’t get one. I finally drew a moose license in 2015, and I wish I’d called then to let your License Bureau crews know that I cried and went bananas when I saw my tag in the mail. The systems works. A person just has to keep applying. So here’s a belated thank you. You can be sure that when I draw my bighorn ram tag—hey, you never know—I will call you that very minute and freak out over the phone. By the way, the moose I shot was a beautiful dream bull with a 44-inch-wide rack.

I wish I had called to let your License Bureau crews know that I cried and went bananas when I saw my moose tag.

Bonnie Potter Roundup

Different picture on elk and roads A caption below a photo in the article “Where To Hunt Elk in Montana” (September-October 2017) states: “After picking a national forest as close to home as possible—to reduce driving time—examine the map for routes closed to motorized vehicles. That’s where the elk are.” This statement is false and portrays an attitude that motorized use of our public lands displaces wildlife and elk. I sponsored HJ 13 in the 2015 Montana legislative session and the results of this study show a completely different picture. The U.S. Forest Service has closed over 20,000 miles of roads in Montana to motorized vehicles in the last 20 years. Did wildlife and elk numbers increase on these lands? No. According to the study, wildlife has decreased their occupancy on public lands and have been migrating to private lands. Private lands have more development, more roads, and more motorized vehicle and equipment use, and yet wildlife are moving to and toward these areas.

Rep. Kerry White Bozeman

Not missing the gloss After looking at the cover of the 2018 photo issue, I wanted to compliment you on the new cover treatment you’ve been using. The new matte cover is far better than the old glossy one you previously used. It makes a classy magazine even classier.

Greg Munther Missoula

Likes the grizzly commentary Director Martha Williams’s column on the grizzly bear situation (“Protecting grizzlies while keeping people safe,” NovemberDecember 2017) was timely, appropriate, and educational. Thank you very much.

Harold Johns Butte

Corrections Several readers noted that the bush on page 14 of the 2018 photo issue is a black hawthorn, not a huckleberry. Others pointed out that the bird on page 8 is a dusky (blue) grouse, not a spruce grouse. Several also chided us for running a photo of fisheries biologists not wearing PFDs on page 5 of the SeptemberOctober 2017 issue and showing two hunters on page 13 of that same issue not wearing blaze orange. Finally, the tree on page 9 of the November-December issue is a subalpine fir, not a subalpine pine, a species that does not exist.